Hi Jenny, congratulations on making the decision to start. That’s a big step. 🙂

I too have gone through a lot of diet disappointments over the years and I always find that the failure sets me back even more. So here’s what I’ve learned and I hope it will help you:

– There is no “magic pill”. Every one is different, every body deals with weight gain and weight loss a bit differently. What works for one person or many people just might not work for you (or it might!). What virtually all people who are successful with weight loss (especially long term) have in common is discipline. They find what works as a fit/thin lifestyle *for them* and they stick to it.

– It’s mind over matter. Especially with anyone prone to emotional/stress/boredom eating. It might help to start examining why you eat and why you eat *what* you eat. I’m finding that fasting days are good for this. This is another reason why fasting is widely used in so many religions. Fasting is a contemplative practice.

– One of the biggest “a-ha!” moments for me with regards to body and weight loss was when I read a book called The Gabriel Method (http://tinyurl.com/the-gabriel-method-amazon). Great insights on weight loss and how we see/treat our bodies.

– Visualize success, not failure. Supplement your fasting and your exercise (and do! do exercise!) with a healthy helping of mental support. I like audiobooks like this one (http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychology-Achievement-Brian-Tracy/dp/0743526589).

– Exercise! Find something you can do every day. It doesn’t have to be crazy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Just move each day. Jumping jacks. Push-ups. Yoga. Running in place. Crazy dancing to your favorite music. This is my favorite – I’ve been doing it every morning for 60 days and lost 2 inches off my waist (and gained muscle weight) with no other changes to my diet. http://tinyurl.com/10minuteAMyoga

– Embrace hard work. My husband used to be a pretty advanced athlete in martial arts and he’s been into health and fitness his whole life. One of the things he told me is that getting your body in shape – losing weight, building muscle, getting the body you want – at it’s core it’s still about “kung fu” which basically just means “HARD WORK.” Embrace the challenge. You’ve followed other diets “to a T” and not found success, so you might not have found the right combination of work for your body, but it’s out there and you can find it. 🙂

– View 5:2 as another part of your journey to discovering what elements you need in your life to be at your healthy, ideal weight. It’s trial and error – the errors are hard to swallow, but they are important for learning.

– You can TOTALLY do fasting. Especially fasting this way – where you’re still eating!

– Come here for support. I’ve been on 5:2 for almost a week and the people here are great! Supportive and willing to help out.

– Keep realistic expectations. If you just consider calories in vs. calories out, on this diet, you’re calorie reduction = 1lb per week. So that’s about 35 weeks to lose 35lbs assuming there are no plateaus (which is unlikely). It’s not “fast” in terms of speed. 🙂 But from everything I’ve read, it’s effective, practical for a long term lifestyle and not damaging to the body (unlike a lot of extreme diets out there).

– Use an app to keep track of your calories on fast days, and maybe on normal days too in the beginning. I like Lose It! which is online and on my iphone. You’ll find a lot of posts about what people are eating on fast and non-fast days. Take a look. Some people do one meal, others do little snacks. Like I said, trial and error.

sorry this was so long! good luck! and keep coming back for support when you start! 🙂

KHM